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The intricate relationship between microtubules and their associated motor proteins during axon growth and maintenance

The hallmarks of neurons are their slender axons which represent the longest cellular processes of animals and which act as the cables that electrically wire the brain, and the brain to the body. Axons extend along reproducible paths during development and regeneration, and they have to be maintaine...

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Autor principal: Prokop, Andreas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3846809/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24010872
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1749-8104-8-17
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author Prokop, Andreas
author_facet Prokop, Andreas
author_sort Prokop, Andreas
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description The hallmarks of neurons are their slender axons which represent the longest cellular processes of animals and which act as the cables that electrically wire the brain, and the brain to the body. Axons extend along reproducible paths during development and regeneration, and they have to be maintained for the lifetime of an organism. Both axon extension and maintenance essentially depend on the microtubule (MT) cytoskeleton. For this, MTs organize into parallel bundles that are established through extension at the leading axon tips within growth cones, and these bundles then form the architectural backbones, as well as the highways for axonal transport essential for supply and intracellular communication. Axon transport over these enormous distances takes days or even weeks and is a substantial logistical challenge. It is performed by kinesins and dynein/dynactin, which are molecular motors that form close functional links to the MTs they walk along. The intricate machinery which regulates MT dynamics, axonal transport and the motors is essential for nervous system development and function, and its investigation has huge potential to bring urgently required progress in understanding the causes of many developmental and degenerative brain disorders. During the last years new explanations for the highly specific properties of axonal MTs and for their close functional links to motor proteins have emerged, and it has become increasingly clear that motors play active roles also in regulating axonal MT networks. Here, I will provide an overview of these new developments.
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spelling pubmed-38468092013-12-03 The intricate relationship between microtubules and their associated motor proteins during axon growth and maintenance Prokop, Andreas Neural Dev Review The hallmarks of neurons are their slender axons which represent the longest cellular processes of animals and which act as the cables that electrically wire the brain, and the brain to the body. Axons extend along reproducible paths during development and regeneration, and they have to be maintained for the lifetime of an organism. Both axon extension and maintenance essentially depend on the microtubule (MT) cytoskeleton. For this, MTs organize into parallel bundles that are established through extension at the leading axon tips within growth cones, and these bundles then form the architectural backbones, as well as the highways for axonal transport essential for supply and intracellular communication. Axon transport over these enormous distances takes days or even weeks and is a substantial logistical challenge. It is performed by kinesins and dynein/dynactin, which are molecular motors that form close functional links to the MTs they walk along. The intricate machinery which regulates MT dynamics, axonal transport and the motors is essential for nervous system development and function, and its investigation has huge potential to bring urgently required progress in understanding the causes of many developmental and degenerative brain disorders. During the last years new explanations for the highly specific properties of axonal MTs and for their close functional links to motor proteins have emerged, and it has become increasingly clear that motors play active roles also in regulating axonal MT networks. Here, I will provide an overview of these new developments. BioMed Central 2013-09-08 /pmc/articles/PMC3846809/ /pubmed/24010872 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1749-8104-8-17 Text en Copyright © 2013 Prokop; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review
Prokop, Andreas
The intricate relationship between microtubules and their associated motor proteins during axon growth and maintenance
title The intricate relationship between microtubules and their associated motor proteins during axon growth and maintenance
title_full The intricate relationship between microtubules and their associated motor proteins during axon growth and maintenance
title_fullStr The intricate relationship between microtubules and their associated motor proteins during axon growth and maintenance
title_full_unstemmed The intricate relationship between microtubules and their associated motor proteins during axon growth and maintenance
title_short The intricate relationship between microtubules and their associated motor proteins during axon growth and maintenance
title_sort intricate relationship between microtubules and their associated motor proteins during axon growth and maintenance
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3846809/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24010872
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1749-8104-8-17
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